On Penny Pritzker, where's the outrage?

Penny Pritzker has understated her income by tens of millions of dollars, clashed openly with organized labor, benefited from offshore tax havens and invested in financial instruments that helped precipitate the 2008 financial meltdown.

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Pritzker's confirmation hearing

Flashback: Obama's nomination

With a vote on her nomination to serve as Commerce secretary coming as early as Tuesday, the Hyatt heiress and Democratic Party rainmaker has encountered only token opposition so far. It’s a striking outcome for a nominee who once looked — on paper — like she might be the most vulnerable of President Barack Obama’s second-term selections.

Instead, both Republicans and Democrats in and outside the Senate have effectively decided to give Pritzker a pass. On the right, conservatives have shown little interest in demonizing Pritzker’s wealth and business practices, even in the immediate aftermath of a presidential campaign in which Democrats did precisely that to GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Liberals and union leaders who once expressed discomfort with Pritzker have ultimately balked at the prospect of a fight with the White House.

On both sides of the aisle, Pritzker skeptics agree on one thing above all: The Department of Commerce simply isn’t worth fighting over.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) told POLITICO on Monday that Pritzker was a “force of nature.” Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said that she and her fellow Democrats had been ready to step in and defend the Chicago billionaire; to her surprise, they haven’t had to go to those lengths.

“I was prepared that she was going to be attacked and prepared to help her. It was a lovefest,” McCaskill said of the Pritzker nomination hearings.

Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, the Republican from Pritzker’s home state, said the nominee’s business record — the plutocrat street cred that engendered early grumbling on the left — likely made for smoother sailing with the Senate GOP.

“She has built businesses from the ground up and already has 3,500 Americans working for her. What has made me particularly trusting of her judgment is the opposition she had from some big, far-left unions. That [shows] she has the capability to make tough decisions,” Kirk said. “It’s looking pretty good for her.”

On one level, it’s astonishing that Pritzker — who withdrew from consideration for the same job four years ago — would have such an easy path through the Senate. Republicans have proven more than willing to fight over Obama’s Cabinet nominations, even for lower-profile departments like Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this year, the Senate GOP waged an all-out war — in the Armed Services Committee and on the national airwaves — against their former colleague Chuck Hagel’s nomination to lead the Pentagon.

At a glance, Pritzker seems to be a more inviting target than Hagel — or Labor nominee Tom Perez, EPA nominee Gina McCarthy or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nominee Richard Cordray, all Obama picks who face uncertain prospects in the Senate. Pritzker is not a decorated military veteran like Hagel or a career public servant such as Perez or McCarthy. She doesn’t represent a core wing of the Democratic coalition beyond the ultra-wealthy donor class.